Homage Ventures: Creating a 'Home' For Founders From aviation to manufacturing, Aditya Ghosh, founder, Homage, has invested in close to 20 businesses

"Pretending to be someone else is a recipe for disaster, an entrepreneur should be authentic," says Aditya Ghosh, founder Homage, co-founder AkasaAir. Ghosh is an active supporter of the startup world and has made multiple investments through his investment firm - Homage Ventures- which has a positive bias towards supporting women-led enterprises. From aviation to manufacturing, Ghosh has invested in close to 20 businesses.

Women Empowerment

Aditya is the chief mentor of Ladies Who Lead (LWL), a premium members-only platform for women leaders, purpose-built to foster professional and personal growth through collective experiences and cross-disciplinary exposure. Present across Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune, LWL is on a mission to create a robust community of 10,000 female leaders across the globe over the next five years. "The vision of LWL is to create a safe space for women in various areas of leadership, from founding a large company or running a startup to the ones who are starting off on their entrepreneurial journey, we focus on their professional and personal growth," says Ghosh.

Almost eight out of ten businesses supported by Ghosh are led by women entrepreneurs, "We try to provide quick, fast, affordable working capital to SMEs and MSMEs, founded by women entrepreneurs."

As an investor, Ghosh is always looking for businesses which are consumer centric. "Before investing we see whether there is a fundamental need of the consumer which the founder is aiming to solve. The business should also have a strong purpose and employee centricity," he says, adding that an investor should not consider oneself to be a hero, "Do not micro-manage," he advises.

Sunrise Sectors

On being asked upon the lucrative sectors to invest in, he says, "In an ascending economy like India, it is difficult to find a sector where there is not an opportunity. As many as 180 million Indians will come into the workforce over the next 25 years and By 2030, 40 per cent of all purchases will be highly digital, technology will drive convenience and sustainable growth. There is opportunity everywhere," he explains.

According to the International Labour Organization, India currently has the highest number of young people with over 65 per cent of the Indian population around 900 million people currently under the age of 35. With a large labor pool, manufacturing facilities, government-supported PLI schemes, reduced tax and duties, stability of tax policies, the digital finance push, large underlying local market, and the implementation of Aadhar and UPI nationally, India is sitting on a huge potential.

He shares that spending on essentials will go up by 2.5 times, spending on services will go up by three to four times,there will be a rise of upward mobility in both medium & high-income groups and millennial and Gen Z preferences will drive consumer behavior.

Highlighting the challenges that India needs to overcome, he says, "Clean water and air, garbage collection, green spaces, 24/7 electricity access, primary healthcare, good roads, Sanitation, gender inclusion & equity, nutrition, physical well-being, shelter, job creation & security, and primary education are some of them."

Flying High

Aditya was the president and member of the Board of IndiGo, for ten years and has contributed to its growth. Currently, he is the co-founder of Akasa Air, India's youngest airline. Recently, Air India and indiGo placed huge aircraft orders and Akasa Air too has placed additional aircraft orders, however, experts opine that these are not enough. Sharing a similar opinion he points out that India needs more airplanes. He explains, "Bringing in more airplanes has a positive impact on a lot of other things. It will create more job opportunities, so we'll have pilots, engineers, flight attendants and airport staff. There'll be more investments going into airports, baggage handling systems and other infrastructure that comes around airports. There'll be more investments in training facilities from simulator training to flight training schools, and so on. We have about 150 million Indians who will fly by 2030, which is not far away."

Some of his investment include, Akasa Air, Chourangi, Slurrpfarm, Creditenable, SpeakIn, Juggernaut, Genepath Diagnostics, Ladies Who Lead, Blue Tokai, Easyres, Vsync, Fab India, Greencel, OYO, RAK Airport, HRIPL - Manufacturing and other non-profit organizations such as SEWA, TWEET, Karm.